This piece is derived from Jeongshik Min’s paper 'A Visual Collective Biography of the Former Korean Comfort Women'. The collective biography in poetic form is inspired by ‘memory-work’ that moves towards a collective history. The Wednesday Demonstrations have been a central influence; Min’s visit to the House of Sharing, the group conversations, and the paintings by the former sexual slaves have provided material for the articulation of ‘the stories without voice’. The original text has been reworked by Shirley Lee with the author’s permission.

Memories of Childhood
 
  born in 1921 
home with four siblings
family poor; for the girls no school
only work like an ox
 girls from poor families
all the same
but never complaining
happy to be home
with her family
her family united, One

in her hometown
with parents and siblings
everything pure, like snow
everyone happy
her family were One

 living at the foot of Mount Chiri
growing tobacco, gathering mushrooms
wild greens on the mountainside
 Colonial Taxation:
Japanese took everything
rice bowls, spoons, chopsticks
even her father’s life
her family broken
family broken

  her family plants seeds, Japan plants a colony
Japan takes their seeds: ‘Baeari fruit’
(embryo buds)
 Colonial Taxation:
they extract oil from the seeds
oil goes to factories
planes go to War
her land is a colony

Recruitment

  on a ship
there are three Chosun maidens
who yearn for the same hometown
 she had persuaded her friends
to come with her
in those days people were simple
the girls knew nothing of the world
they believed they were going
to work in a factory

 
if only she hadn’t persuaded her friends
to go with her

The Women’s Volunteer Labour Corps 

  her Japanese teacher at secondary school
asked her to join the Corps
she would be able to continue her studies
 her mother wept and pleaded with her
to marry like the other girls
at least on paper
to avoid the recruitment
  but the brightest girls joined
the head girl and she
50 girls from Chinju
50 girls from Masan
became 150 in Pusan
more girls
more girls
from everywhere

 Japan was desperate for workers
from colonies
from everywhere in Korea
to run the factories in Japan
to be taken to the front
to comfort the soldiers
the soldiers
soldiers
  the Japanese wanted even
the youngest girls 
young girls
young girls were taken
innocent Chosun girls

 an innocent girl
stolen, kidnapped
 the girls would work
in factories and hospitals –
everyone believed it

  she could live a comfortable life as a nurse
she would become a nurse in Japan
she would go to Japan
Japan
a better place

  a girl of 14 taken away
she did not know where she was being taken
one girl from each family
  – a colonist’s law for a colony
  the eldest, the youngest
but only the girls
the fearful girls

  the girls of the colonies
were delivered to
Japan
               far
                      far away
                                        far away from home

 Forced Initiation as a Comfort Woman

 Corporal Kobayasi Tadeo
stole her innocence
dragged her
raped her 
under a tree in the dark on a road
she was fifteen and scared
unable to bite off her tongue
like a virtuous Korean woman
she had been too scared
too scared

   the flowers of the cherry tree blossomed
   and sucked up a young girl’s spirit

  young girl then abandoned in a cubicle
of one and a half tatami 
Kobayasi came again
and again
and again

  many soldiers followed
ten soldiers a day
thirty soldiers a day
forty soldiers a day 
countless soldiers
soldiers
  no time to eat
no time to sleep
no time for the toilet
no time 

 the soldiers rushed in
one after another in orderly lines
their trousers down already
‘Hayaku! Hayaku!
the soldiers’ swords and pistols at hand
  too exhausted, she gave up counting
her pants hung round her legs
no strength to pull them up

other girls committed suicide
like virtuous Korean women
  their bodies were burned
   ‘the dead are your soup,’ soldiers told her
       she ate and drank her friends

Life at the Comfort Station

  she washed her clothes when there was time
and soldiers’ clothes
and condoms

 Sexual Slavery Women of the military unit
not people –
public toilets 
piss house

  she looked up at the moon
they smacked her – what are you doing, girl?
she talked to herself
they smacked her – don’t fucking swear at us, girl!
they told her to suck them – it was her duty
and when she refused
they beat her into a coma
  she woke up three days later                                             

 no time to feel lonely
serving the soldiers
kept her too busy

the soldiers preferred her
a clean Korean girl
  some did not care about condoms
    to die through disease
    to die by a bullet
      there was no difference at all
  soldiers always queuing outside
waiting their turn, quarreling
sometimes jumping the queue
  most done in under five minutes

  soldiers about to leave for the battlefield
were much more gentle with her 
they gave her loose change
said it would be of no use to them
if they never came back
  some soldiers wept
too scared to go out and fight
    comfort them
    say to them, ‘return safely from battle’
  one or two made confessions of love 
some even proposed

 the women’s vaginas are swollen 
injection No. 606:
no space, not for a needle
subject to torture
day and night
days and nights
kicked beaten
hit slapped
cursed

  her menstruation starts
while serving
she serves soldiers while bleeding

 malaria, jaundice, breakdown
 every night she sat on a board
on a puddle inside an emergency dugout
she longed to go home
she missed her mother
her brothers and sisters
she longed to go home
  sixty years on
  her teeth grind at the thought

Returning

  Japan had lost the war
Japan hurried to bury their crimes 
papers and bodies
bodies of girls

  they burned
the bodies of girls
 
 all men were the same to her
even the white soldiers asked her
to comfort them

 mother!
mother, she is back
‘Have you returned from the dead?’
mother, she is back
 she has come back
but in silence
  her voice has been lost
  in the Comfort Stations

After Telling their Stories to the Public
 
 she is a woman of Chosun
whose culture of Confucian values
respects a virtuous woman
where the shame of a woman
is the shame of her family
 
and her family whispers this –
    she has brought shame to the family

was it her fault that her virtue was taken?
had she really brought shame to her family?
  why did she have to be
Korean man’s property
to be sold to Japan?

 as youth slips away
she is suddenly old and grey
her womb malformed
from abuse

 her diseases
and shame
have been living within her
for her family
for her homeland 
for her

 she has tried to forget
– more than fifty years on now
aged over sixty –
by testifying
by meeting other Sexual Slavery Women
by painting
                                           
  the memory tortures her
again
she is going crazy
again
nightmares of the past possess her
her screams in the night waken everyone up
 
  as she voices her past
the wounds she has kept
inside for so long
seem to slowly be healing
slowly
her heart can be soothed
she can express her happiness
sadness
with fewer distractions
when she cannot sleep
she paints all night
she forgets everything while painting

  it was hard for her to be with
other former Sexual Slavery Women
in the same house
  she came to Teochon
the House of Sharing
others then joined her
  she was there 
alone 
  when drunk and lonely
she went up to a grave
and cried
and cried

    and there she imagined punishing the guilty

 punishing the guilty – 
the Japanese emperor tied to a tree
she aims her gun at him

            white birds are flying to bring peace –
            for him to say sorry to her is enough

 who is she?
a crushed flower
or a bud yet unblossomed?
these words still keep hope for the blossoming
o unblossomed flower!
  remembering youth
  she mourns her innocence